


Chell's Ever After

by Cherith



Category: Portal (Video Game)
Genre: Exhaustion, Gen, The Future, biodome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-21
Updated: 2012-12-21
Packaged: 2017-11-21 20:12:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,521
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/601625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cherith/pseuds/Cherith





	Chell's Ever After

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Rabbit](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rabbit/gifts).



An hour after being cast free of the testing facility, the companion cube behind her, Chell was overwhelmed.  Without the help of the portal gun, the cube was heavy and where she was once used to traveling quickly from one portal to the next, she could only walk.  And it didn’t seem to matter in which direction she chose to move, there were only plants in every direction.  
  
After two hours, the sky above her which had once been bright and brilliant blue had turned dark and the air around her was no longer so warm.  In fact, after two hours, it was hard to breath.  Everything was heavy and thick and her whole chest heaved.    
  
It was nothing like home.  
  
Though perhaps that wasn’t right.  The testing facility had been just that, and though she couldn’t remember anything else before it, the word ‘home’ didn’t seem to fit it properly.  She did however know it better than she knew any of her current surroundings.  She stared at the grass... grass as far as the eye could see and pulled herself on top of the companion cube to consider her options.  The grass was tall and by the way it grew, like it had inside the broken parts of the facility, it looked like it had gone undisturbed a long time.    
  
Despite all the times it had looked like the testing track was taking her outside, she didn’t find any open spaces that looked as though they reached back down into the Aperture labs.  Even if they had, she didn’t know what good it was going to do her to go right back inside.    
  
But as the dark set in and she found that her clothes which normally suited her just fine, were not enough to keep the chill from her skin, finding an entrance didn’t seem like the worse idea she could come up with.  Even as desperate an idea as it was, the worse thought came when Chell looked around at the dark, shadowed grass in every direction and didn’t know which way the door was.  Sliding down off the cube, she untied the rest of her Aperture Science coveralls and slid her arms into the top half.  It was better than her tank top, but after a few minutes it was obvious she would be cold the rest of the night.  
  
Dragging the companion cube behind her, she walked.  Any direction was better than no direction: one of the many lessons she learned while testing.  
  
As the dark settled into the sky and the moon stared down at her as though it alone could light her way, it was easy to take notice of how quiet everything was.  The only sound was the intermittent breeze through the tall grass and the slow _shhhhh... shhhhh... shhhhh_ sound of the companion cube being dragged behind her.  
  
It did not help to do so, but she found she missed the constant whirring or churning sounds of the lab.  There was always some machine moving, working... talking.  She had never really been alone.   Her fingers slipped off the companion cube and she stumbled, catching herself just before fell.  Overcorrecting, she sat back on the edge of the cube and then slid down the edge, until she rested on the ground, her back against the cube.  It was surprisingly warm compared to the air and she huddled closer to it.    
  
For the first time since Wheatley had woken her, she was tired.  She’d slept enough for so many lifetimes and yet, here she was, huddled against a metal box in the dark and considering sleep. Chell closed her eyes and leaned her head on the cube.    
  
Would she sleep for hours?  Days?  Would she sleep at all, or just remain in some state of perpetually weighted fatigue?    
  
If so, would she be able to keep going?  
  
Did she want to?  
  
The idea of _morning_ , of _life_ , of anything other than portals and testing, seemed like foreign concepts.  She knew the words; she could consider their meanings but didn’t know how she was supposed to experience them.  The best she could think of was that now, when there was no GLaDOS, no testing, no Wheatley, that she would have the time to figure things out.  In those odd moments between awake and asleep, Chell shuddered.  It wasn’t the cold that crawled down her spine, but the unknown.    
  
If there was no track to follow, and no building to keep her penned, what awaited her?  
  
Morning came as mornings do.    
  
Sweat beaded on Chell’s brow and she doffed the top of her coveralls again in favor of the morning breeze.  The sun was bright, it hurt her eyes to try and look at it, but it was that strained feeling, that edging for something beyond the horizon that reminded her she was free of GLaDOS’ clutches.  She was in a place without portal guns, without turrets, without the incessant drone of the video monitors; it was a land she had yet to discover, but for the moment, it was hers.  
  
Chell climbed on top of the companion cube and stretched her hand over her eyes, looking out to the horizon in every direction.  There was more grass than she had ever seen in her life and it was bright, nearly as bright as the sun itself when she lowered her hand again.    
  
In the distance, a yet-to-be-known distance there was something, a streak of movement or a shadow across the horizon; it may not have been something, but it was not... nothing.  And if it did turn out to be nothing, well, she would be somewhere new and she would have the chance to look for something that was actually something, again.  
  
The horizon dipped and sparkled in the distance, a tease of a line, and Chell couldn’t help but think of the way Wheatley had let her through the testing track.  How he would appear from behind walls, or from the ceiling, from the places neither she nor GLaDOS could predict.  From time to time, she had to stop walking and climb up on top of the cube again to make sure she was headed in the right direction.  It was an exercise of sorts, looking so far in the distance and working towards an inevitable goal, when she had so long been used to taking leaps of faith, unsure what the future held.  
  
At least the grass beneath her crunched under the heels of her long-jump boots, instead of bouncing her into the sky.  She had always hated those gravity plates.  
  
Time was such an amorphous concept when testing, she had never really known if it was night or day, if a test had taken a minute or five, or an hour, a day.  She supposed that GLaDOS knew what the times were and somewhere in the labs they must have logs of each test she’d ever undertaken.  Perhaps there were averages: for a total of 832 tests, she had completed them at an average speed of 1 minute 28 seconds.  Something like that.    
  
Not that it really mattered.  There was no one but GLaDOS to review those scores.  Maybe she would use the scores to improve the testing time on the testing robots she had been working on.  And perhaps, if GLaDOS was lucky, she would have a robot make it through 833 tests.  That would make her happy, wouldn’t it?  
  
In the middle distance, something flickered. Chell stopped, climbed onto the cube and put her hand up to shade her eyes again.  The light was different now, less blinding but still bright, the sun nearly overhead.  It took effort, but when she focused on the flickering space, the horizon changed.  The grass was darker and something, though she couldn’t make out what, was definitely moving.    
  
Foregoing the cube for the moment, Chell hopped off of it and ran towards the movement, her long-jump boots lengthening her strides.  Her breath caught her chest and she couldn’t keep up the pace for long, but she didn’t have to.  
  
There.    
  
It was a twinkle against the sky that caught Chell’s eye, but close, like if she just reached out her hand...  
  
Ouch.  
  
There was something.  Her hand stopped in the air, blocked by something solid, flat and invisible.  And then as her eyes tried to focus on the space just in front of her hand, the reflection became more clear, her hand just centimeters in front of her real hand.  And then, as she looked down, her skin, lighter in her reflection but it was her, Aperture tank top, orange jumpsuit.  She put her other hand in front of her, finding the surface in front of it as well.  Slowly, she edged along the surface, looking for an end.  Keeping in mind where her companion cube was -- the silver and pink of it standing out against the golden grass -- she walked for several meters, finding no end to the surface.  
  
Whatever it was, it was more like glass than a mirror, the reflection of herself so faint that she had to be right up close to it in order to see herself.  It must be glass then, of some sort.  In the distance behind her, was the shed back to the lab and nothing else but grass.  But where did the glass end?  Anywhere?  
  
Nowhere?  
  
Ever curious Chell dragged the cube to her location.  Gathering her strength, she lifted the cube and tossed it at the glass.  Nothing happened.  As she was far too used to, the cube only bounced away.  After retrieving it, she placed it against the glass (though the glass seemed to curve just enough that the cube wouldn’t stand flush against it).    
  
From there, though her stomach rumbled and her body ached, she started walking slowly, and with her hand on the glass.  
  
Her fingers felt for cracks and changes and when one hand tired of being held up she walked at an angle to use her other hand.  It was exhausting in a way she was not used to.  Considering her exertion on the testing tracks, Chell considered what made this place different.  It wasn’t the testing track, but many of the places inside Aperture had not been part of the testing facilities. Still as the day wore on and her arms and legs became stiff and sore, she had to admit that something was different.  
  
As dark settled around her, she strained her eyes to search out what still lay ahead.  In the not-so-far distance sat a familiar shape.  There was a strange comfort in the square shadow ahead.  Frustrated, she pounded a fist against the glass.  She’d travelled in a circle and there were only meters between her and the cube.  It had taken her nearly a day to do it, but she had traversed the circumference of the entire area available to her.  
  
The last laugh was on her then, GLaDOS who had so desperately wanted her dead, would not be around when her time ran out.  But, Aperture would still be responsible.  She’d just live to death.  
  
It wasn’t very reassuring.    
  
She kept her hand on the glass, determined to finish her search even if it only led her back to where she’d started.  It was for the best, she decided, she was getting cold again and the idea of spending a night in the grass without the comfort of the cube’s retained heat was not a pleasant one.  She forced herself to make the rest of the circle, promising her body rest it now desperately needed as soon as she finished.  
  
And then.  
  
There.  
  
She could see the whole cube now, but her fingers hit on an indented space.  Something lengthwise in the glass -- a crack?  No.  Chell ran her fingers along the smooth space, the length of which was taller than she was and she could just barely, (on her tiptoes thanks to the long-jump boots), feel that it turned just over her head, the seam running to the side.    
  
A door?  
  
Her other hand against the glass, her heart sped up, frantic to know if she’d finally found a way out.  It was door shaped, not quite flat, but definitely space enough for a door.  Sweeping her hands over the space, she looked for a knob or a latch, anything that would let her push or pull her way out.  
  
On the first pass there was nothing, just flat glass that stuck to the sweaty palms of her hands as she pushed and prodded the door.  And then...  
  
She pushed and _click_.  
  
The door swung out and before her lay a large room, ornately decorated and slightly (okay, maybe more than slightly) reminiscent of the old Aperture Laboratory facilities.  Something like Cave Johnson would’ve decorated.  Or perhaps Carolyn after him.    
  
Keeping the door propped open with a foot, Chell leaned to the side and grabbed the edge of the companion cube and pulled it closer.   _Shhhh... squeaaak... shhhh... squeaaak_ as she dragged it through the grass with corner of it sliding along the glass.  It barely fit through the door and she pulled it through just enough to keep the door from closing again.  
  
The air crackled an almost familiar sound.  
  
 **“I don’t know whether to be disappointed or pleased.  Not that I suppose you care to know, but your replacements are doing quite well.  Since you haven't starved to death, yet, I suppose I don't need you after all.”**  
  
Chell turned her head up, looking for speakers or a video screen, something to focus her attention on.  GLaDOS’ voice was almost as welcome as it was frightening.  She wasn’t free after all... was she?  
  
Her shoulders sagged.  
  
 **“Well go on, if you’re going.  I don’t have all day.”**  
  
 _Click._  It echoed through the room and Chell watched a door swing open on the other side.  Sound flooded into the room, whooshing and beeping.  She ran to the other side of the room to look out, a hand hooked around the door frame to hang on; she’d been burned on exits before.  
  
The other side was unfamiliar, but it looked like the cargo bay Wheatley rescued her from.  Lighted boxes moved through the sky, and each of them zoomed through the air, some in lines and others crossing over them.  The ground was dark green and overgrown, and from it dark grey boxes grew up into the sky, buildings with windows that didn’t start until her eyes had drawn halfway up the sides.  It was...  
  
It was no future the automated message screens had shown her.    
  
Maybe that meant it was better.  
  
Chell pulled herself back into the room, unwilling to leave yet.  She raced across, fueled by newfound adrenaline, picked up the companion cube -- _her_ companion cube -- and headed for the exit.  The hopefully, very real, exit.  At the door she stopped again, and then held a hand out to the room.  A wave, though she couldn’t see how GLaDOS watched, she knew that she was.  
  
And then she was gone, through the door, an inescapable clang echoing behind her.    
  
 **“Goodbye.”**  



End file.
